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"Let's not break out the Joy-Lube just yet."
Metal Arms: Glitch In The System
Developer: Sierra/Swingin' Ape Studios
Platform: Gamecube (reviewed), PS2, XBox
Genre: 3rd-person shooter
I'm not a huge fan of shooters, let me get that out in the open right off the bat. There were some exceptions to that rule, however. I loved Goldeneye (the original, not that crappy new one) and Perfect Dark. Both were made by the same company, Rareware, who was also responsible for the Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie franchises, which I just simply adore. In my junior year of highschool, Rareware created what I consider my favorite shooter of all time: Jet Force Gemini. It was a 3rd-person shooter/adventure game that fused together Rareware's knack for gun-based genius and their penchant for cartoon characters and colorful storytelling. I loved every second of that game, and spent the better part of my freshman year in college obsessively retreading it to find every last item, enemy and secret.
When the Gamecube was launched in November of 2001, I had high hopes for it's future. I was expecting a slew of awesome Rareware titles, and was hoping for a possible sequel to JFG. I never got what I wanted. Nintendo sold their stock in Rare, putting the group into the independant 3rd-party category for a short while before being scooped up by Microsoft. At this stage, I have pretty much accepted the fact that I will never see another Jet Force Gemini game ever again.
However, it would seem that a new contender for JFG's coveted spot has arisen instead. In the winter of 2003, Sierra and Swingin' Ape Studios released Metal Arms: Glitch In The System, and while it's not quite enough to dethrone the almighty Jet Force Gemini in my favor, it's a damn-fine example of how a future installment very well could.
Story
In the deepest reaches of space, the planet Iron Star floats in solutide. Several thousand years ago, the entire planet was constructed in outer space by a roving band of sentient robots searching for a place to call home. The framework of the planet was built of iron and steel, and constructed to produce a constant source of heat and gravity from deep within it's bowels. On top of the framework was laid earth and plantlife, turning Iron Star from a steel ball into an artificial but fully-functioning planet.
Eons passed, and civilization spread across the globe, the population of Iron Star comprised of three primary groups of robots: Droids, Science Bots and the mysterious Morbots. The Droids made up about 95% of the population, and constituted the average joe robots that went about daily life on the planet. The Science Bots were the leaders, and were the only Bots that were programmed with the knowledge to improve and enhance the Droid populations. The Morbots were a completely different beast altogether. They lived deep inside the planet as the caretakers of the world's internal functions. They made sure that the planet kept running properly.
All was peaceful until recently. A few years ago, one of the Science Bots, named Dr. Exavolt, came to a horrifying conclusion. Although the Science Bots were programmed with the know-how to improve the functionality and parameters of the Droid population, they did not possess the capacity to further improve themselves. Faced with this odd dilemma, Exavolt set into motion a collection of plans that would allow the Science Bots to upgrade and improve themselves, granting them the freedom to become more than they already were. Months upon months of research went into the project and finally the day arrived that one of their own kind would be upgraded. Exavolt and his colleagues used a non-functioning Science Bot frame to perform their experiments upon, and all seemed to go well for a while. Then, disaster struck.
Halfway through the upgrade procedure, the dead frame hoisted itself off of the maintenance table and attacked the staff. In the wake of the Bot's carnage, it left nothing behind. Only one Science Bot, Exavolt himself, was spared and taken with the newly arisen Bot as a hostage. The rogue Bot tore free massive chunks of the research station's edifice with which to augment and armor his body. Eventually, he transformed himself into a monstrous, towering, invulnerable behemoth of steel and fury. He named himself General Corrosive, and proceeded to wage war on all Droid kind.
Years later, the war still rages on. Corrosive's legion of Mil Bots has taken over nearly every inch of Iron Star, leaving only a small rebel faction of Droids left to fight them. The Droids are fighting a losing battle, and the end of their freedom draws closer each day.
However, one day a faint ray of hope appears during a routine scouting mission. While searching through the ruins of a Droid town, two trooops named Screwed and Hosed come across an oddly-built and currently inactive Droid named Glitch. They retrieve his body and bring him back to their base to be re-built and re-activated. Upon doing so, they learn that this strange Droid has the ability to interface with nearly any provided weapon type, can take obscene amounts of damage and is quicker and more naturally attuned to combat than any previous Droid soldier. Glitch is drafted by the Droid Resistance as their lone-gun operative. As Glitch, you muct crush the Mil Army from the inside and stand as the one viable threat to General Corrosive's facist regime.
All of this is explained in the game's manual and in the well-produced, World War 2-style opening movie. The game is littered with these scenes between each level and in the middle of some. Populating these sequences is a host of characters that are some of the most memorable I've encountered recently. Glitch is the straight man; he's got attitude, but he's not a walking ball of cliched arrogance and one-liners. Playing beside him in the game's rather large cast is Colonel Alloy, the stereotypical war commander and leader of the Droid rebellion, Zobby, Glitch's canine-like sidekick and the Droid responsible for locating Glitch's body in the first place, and Mozer, a giant, fretful miner Droid voiced by Patrick Warburton.
And then there's Krunk. He's the Droid Army's cheif mechanic, and he drives the amount of character in this game through the roof. He spews a perpetual stream of censored expletives and obscene trash-talking. He's just so over-the-top that you can't not love his abrasive and vulgar attitude. Spend less than five minutes with him and he'll become your favorite character, guaranteed.
But, beyond the supporting cast, the enemies and bosses spout a ridiculous amount of character as well. Opening fire upon a group of Mils will cause them to run and scream hysterically as your bullets tear their limbs off. Watching an enflamed Mil Grunt frantically running in circles while his broken arms flop dead at his sides is just too funny for words.
To sum up the plot, character and overall presentation of this game, I'd have to say it's pretty damned good. The dialogue is witty and well-executed, the characters are all distinct and memorable, the enemies all have a palpable sense of identity and the entire package comes together very well.
If I have one complaint, it's that the story is a little stagnant beyond that opening cutscene. The backstory is great. I love the history of Iron Star and the events surrounding the rise of Corrosive. However, honestly, there were a lot of in-game opportunities for Sierra and Swingin' Ape to expand upon the mythos of the world and they missed nearly every one. You never actually see a Morbot, you never find out just where the hell Glitch actually came from, and there are several other plot lines later in the game that are never really expanded upon or researched further. The game has a great setup, and it has awesome dialogue and characterization to push the title forward. However, the characters don't deveop at all and the story doesn't really complete itself in any way other than the most basic of fashions. It was just sort of a letdown amidst all of that great atmosphere and character.
Gameplay
Glitch uses a dual-analog setup for his control. You move with the joystick and aim with the c-stick. Your primary weapons (laser, machinegun, shotgun, etc) are mapped to the R trigger while your secondary weapons (grenades, sniper scope, etc) are mapped to the L trigger. You switch through your primary weapons with the X button and your secondary weapons with the B button. You jump with the A button (double jump by pressing again in the air), and your "action button" (open doors, use a gun turret, etc) is mapped to the Y button.
Controlling Glitch is pretty much as intuitive as you can get with a console controller. It's not overly complicated and the controls are quite responsive.
As Glitch, you have a substantial amount of weaponry left to your disposal. You start with a basic mining laser, which isn't terribly powerful but comes with unlimited ammunition. As you progress, however, you get bigger and better weapons like the S.P.E.W. rifle (machinegun), the Scatter Blaster (shotgun) and Rocket Launcher. There are also a few nifty weapons like the Rivet Gun which fires powerful explosive bolts through enemies that explode a couple of seconds after firing. Throughout the course of the game you will also be given the ability to upgrade your primary weapons several times each. Most weapons can be upgraded twice, each upgrade granting a higher maximum ammo capacity, higher rate of fire, higher damage and so forth.
The secondary weapons also have their fair share of nifty items. You start off with basic Coring Charges which are little more than normal grenades. However, as you progress you get EMP Grenades (which shut down all affected enemies for a short while), Cleaners (which, when thrown, home in on the selected target) and Recruiter Grenades (which turn all affected enemy bots into AI-driven companions that will stick with you until either their death or the end of the level).
The final primary weapon to make mention of is the Control Tether. You recieve this item less than halfway through the game, and it comes in handy frequently throughout the remainder of the adventure. Most Mil Bots have these exposed red panels on their backs which, when the Control Tether is used upon them, allows Glitch to assume control of the tethered Bot. Throughout the game, you will encounter several different types of capturable Mils, from flying Troopers, to normal Grunts to massive, heavily armored Titans. Each type of Bot comes equipped with it's own unique set of abilities that Glitch has full access to while tethered. Once a Bot has been tethered, Glitch's body disassembles, leaving him impervious to damage as you pilot the enemy Bot around. Once the tethered Bot has either been destroyed or Glitch has manually severed the control link, the enemy Bot regains control of itself and Glitch's body automatically re-assembles where you left it.
Beyond Glitch's immediate selection of weapons and abilities, however, our stumpy little hero also has several environmental sources of weaponry and several types of vehicles to pilot around the various levels. In some, you'll be careening over Mils in a tank, racing through desert gorges in a Rapid Armored Transport or hovering above the ground in a Claw Loader.
Metal Arms is a fairly linear game. It's comprised of 42 individual levels, all with their own set of various objectives and themes. The environments are mostly very large, and mostly very well-designed. There are a few bad apples in the bunch, but that's to be expected. All of the game's environments feature destructible sections and lots of pickups and items. In some levels, you'll be manning a turret to keep enemy Bots out of a base, in some you'll be sliding down a zipline while plugging enemies from afar, in some you'll be infiltrating massive military complexes and using stealth to bypass the nastier guards. The majority of the game's levels are very well-planned and provide much entertainment.
For the most part in these levels, you'll be moving from point A to point B and shooting everything in your path. However, there is a bit of exploration to be found in the game's many levels. In order to truly find everything there is to find, you need to locate several Secret Chips located throughout all of the game's areas. These chips can be found laying in hard-to-reach places, inside of tough-to-kill enemies or can be awarded by completing a level in record time. The levels can be replayed at any time, so don't worry if you missed a few in level 20.
The purpose of these Secret Chips is to unlock new maps in the game's multiplayer mode. There are some two-dozen well-sized (in some cases very large) maps to choose from once all have been unlocked. Most are very well designed and are a blast to play on. The game's multiplayer mode is just generally awesome altogether. There are plenty of vehicles to drive around, lots of Bots to take control of and tons of cool weapons and items to make use of to obliterate your friends. I suppose the one big downside would be that there's no online support. I'm not a fan of online, so it makes no difference to me, but I know plenty of people who would consider it a turnoff.
My only real complaints with the gameplay would have to be based around the difficulty. Now, don't get me wrong, I like a challenging game as much as the next person. However, I like that challenge to be for the right reasons. I don't want the challenge to come from a lack of ammo, or impossibly unfair fighting conditions. In the later segments of the game, these problems run rampant. In the last full level of the game, in the very last section of the level you are pitted against more enemies in one sitting than throughout any other segment in the entire game and you are given not so much as a single ammo container the entire time. No extra life either. You get what you go in with, and if it isn't enough, you're fucked. That's not fun, that's absurd, and it's a really lame way to extend gameplay.
Thankfully, the game features an extremely generous checkpoint system, so you don't have to do an ungodly amount of backtracking when you get slammed by enemies in droves.
Graphics
I'll keep this short and sweet.
The game looks great. All of the characters, enemies and environments are high-polygon and the range of animations for each character and enemy is impressive to say the least. All of the enemy Bots are destructible in a variety of ways, so frequently you'll see Mils running around with their heads falling off, or their arms torn free, or their entire torsos destroyed so that only a pair of scampering Bot legs is seen running wildly around the area.
The environments are all quite large and feature very long draw distances in the more open-ended areas. Some areas, like the desert valley outside of a huge Mil complex, are just teeming with enemies and obstacles to overcome.
The effects are equally impressive, which is a good thing, because there is an ungodly amount of metallic carnage displayed in this game. Robot parts spray in all directions as you fire your rocket launcher, the walls of buildings are torn away as your bullets shred through their walls and massive explosions blacken the ground and char the air.
The only flaw in the graphics department is in the framerate. Metal Arms was designed for the XBox, and on the XBox the framerate is apparently as solid as it can get. Trying to run all of that high-poly carnage on the Gamecube produces a few occasional hiccups in the framerate, but nothing that pops up frequently or hinders the gameplay. I haven't played the PS2 version, but from the articles I've read, the same stability cannot be said for the Sony version. If framerate is a big issue to you, the XBox version is probably the way to go, while the PS2 version would be the absolute wrong choice to make.
Sound
Great. Metal Arms features a memorable selection of music, even if the number of tracks is fairly sparse. Many of the game's levels feature a minimal amount of music, so as not to detract from the audio holocaust that the sound effects broadcast. Personally, I would have preferred more tracks, but what's there is pretty good. It's all dark techno and industrial stuff, but it fits the theme and mood of the game well.
The sound effects are a completely different bag. The game overflows with explosions, crunching metal, gunfire and hellish screams echoing from your enemies. To be perfectly blunt, it's one of the most aurally chaotic games I have ever played. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing dependant upon your living situation. If you live in your own house, on a farm, miles away from your nearest neighbor, you can crank this game up to Manowar-concert decibel levels and have a blast. If you're like me however, and you live right next door to a horrid half-troll bitch that likes to drop drama-bombs in your lap for making even the slightest of noises while she's at home, you're going to be walking on eggshells most of the time you're playing this game.
As for the voice acting, it's done superbly. This isn't Shakespeare, so the acting doesn't have to be award-winning, but it's as professional as a game featuring two characters named Screwed and Hosed can possibly be. The comic delivery is spot-on, and the lines are handled exceptionally. Very well-done.
Flaws
1) There are a lot of places for this game to expand upon the plot and mythos surrounding Iron Star, the war and Glitch's past that the developers dropped the ball on every single time. Beyond the backstory and the opening cinematic, there's barely any plot progression to be found beyond "go infiltrate this base so we can steal Corrosive's plans." Like I said before, there's a ton of atmosphere and character, but all of that great stuff doesn't actually go anywhere.
2) The difficulty in the game is mostly based on skill, but there are far too many instances where the difficulty is rooted in unfairness. The difficulty in the game should not be based on rationing every last bit of ammo you have in order to tear through 200 Mil Bots at once. That's just a cheap and irritating way to extend gameplay.
3) The framrate has a tendency to stutter occasionally in the GCN build. However, it's certainly leagues better than the framerate in the PS2 version is reputed to be.
4) The music is good but sparse. I wish that there had been more of it.
5) No online in the multiplayer. Not a turn-off to me, but I'm weird like that.
Overall
Jet Force Gemini still holds the title for best shooter in my book. However, Metal Arms comes in at a close second. Honestly, if the next game simply balances the difficulty so that the challenge isn't based around unfairness, the story is expanded upon and all the right plot areas are addressed and maybe if the world of Iron Star is made more open-ended like the various worlds found in JFG, it might have a chance of besting the Rareware masterpiece as the king of my hill.
However, on it's own merits, and not in comparison with Jet Force Gemini, this game is just friggin' awesome. It has atmosphere and character to lend, great, furious, frantic gameplay, a solid and impressive graphics engine, great sound effects and a multiplayer mode that will certainly entertain for several hours. If you've been looking for a game to tear the shit out of enemy robots with a rocket launcher, featuring a Droid named Krunk that takes every opportunity he can to call you a "dick", then look no further. Metal Arms: Glitch In The System has been looking for you too!
Score: 8.4
 
Last edited by Raziel; 2005-01-03 at 05:41 AM.
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